PARRINELLO PENS LETTER AND GETS INTERVIEWED FOR MAJOR ATV ARTICLES

New Jersey NOHVCC Rep. shows us how to be heard in the media

       New Jersey NOHVCC State Representative and founder and director of the Jersey ORV Association John Parrinello keeps a close eye on the local newspapers for OHV-related news. When the Suburban Trends (a north Jersey paper) wrote an opinion in the Sunday, August 1st issue regarding the problems New Jersey is having with ATVs illegally riding on state lands he took special notice.

       The fairly commonsense opinion that the paper outlined was actually supporting the implementation of legal ATV trails on National Forest Service lands. However, they also gave some bizarre reasons why they feel no "ATV riding parks" should be built in New Jersey.

       "After a few other misleading articles previous to this one, this is the one that broke the camels back," says Parrinello. "It forced me to put the pen to paper, so I wrote a letter to the editor to set them straight on the facts regarding OHVing in Jersey."

       A little over two weeks later, John's letter was printed in the paper. This put Parrinello's name out in the forefront and when the same newspaper wanted to do an in-depth, front page feature article on ATV issues, John got a phone call and was interviewed and quoted extensively in the article. And it didn't stop there. A statewide New Jersey paper, The Star Ledger, picking up on the info in the Suburban Trends article, interviewed Parrinello for a major ATV article they were currently working on.

       "It's kind of neat how a simple letter to the editor got my name out there to the reporters," says John, who is simply known as J.P. to his NOHVCC cohorts. "To be able to lay out the facts and give our point of view in these very important articles is a big plus. After all, a lot of land access issues come down to public opinion, and there's no better place to influence that than in the media whether it's print, radio, or TV."

        Following is Parrinello's original letter to the editor, followed by the Suburban Trends front page feature on ATVs. The Star Ledger ATV article has yet to be published.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Suburban Trends

Dear Editor,
   To the author of “Our View,” “Getting Real with ATVs” (Sunday, Aug 1): My sentiments exactly! Let’s get real with ATVs.
    I’d like to address some points in your article and enlighten you with some facts. The ATVs are not the problem! The problem is the lack of legal and safe riding areas.
   And the problem is neither unmanageable nor unrealistic, seeing how 90 percent of the other states provide legal and safe areas to enjoy the sport, California being the largest, valuing its OHV community at $30,000,000,000.
   The argument that giving ATV riders a place to ride will curb illegal riding, is absolutely true, as proven in other states, and the officials from these states will tell you that trying to enforce away OHVs (off-highway vehicles) will not work. The only problem is not managing a sport that is one of the fastest growing sports in the country and not going away.
   The New Jersey OHV community is over 100,000 strong and growing tremendously. The New Jersey OHV industry generates millions of dollars in tax revenues annually. The economic value as of 2001 (the last industry figures available) was $451,010,000. There are approximately 110 retail motorcycle outlets employing approximately 1,500 people with an estimated payroll of $30,000,000, plus another few million in ancillary services, i.e. gas, oil, etc. These figures do not include other OHVs.
   As for you not thinking an ATV park is the solution, I ask you what experience or expertise you use to make such an irresponsible statement?
   As for the National Forest Service, they own little to no land in New Jersey, so that idea doesn’t work.
   A little background and some facts about OHVs;
-OHV Recreation is now a college curriculum in at least two universities, Colorado State and Marshall University, and the first person to complete the course was a U.S. Forest Service employee.
-The Federal Recreation Trails Program administered through the Fed. Highway Administration is totally funded by OHV gasoline tax collected federally and then distributed to each state based on their OHV population.
   For New Jersey, last year’s share was $800,000, and for the period 1993 to 2004 the amount New Jersey received was $6,487,810 of which 30 percent is supposed to be used for motorized recreation and 40 percent for mixed use. Many miles of hiking trails have been established with these funds, but zero miles of motorized trails exist in New Jersey. Motorized recreation can pay for trails in New Jersey- they just can’t use them.
According to the New Jersey SCORP Plan (Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan), motorized recreation has a place in the recreation; I guess they just haven’t found it yet.

John Parrinello
NOHVCC State Rep.
JORVA Founder and Director
Wanaque
 

FRONT PAGE FEATURE ARTICLE ON THE NEW JERSEY OHV ISSUE

Suburban Trends, August 18, 2004

All revved-up and no place to go (and ride), say off-roaders

By Carol Fletcher
Staff Writer

   So you just bought a vehicle to go off:-roading. Where do you go?
   That is the big problem, says off highway vehicle (OHV) rider and activist John Parrinello, who used to ride but now lobbies full-time for more OHV use in the state. As the New Jersey partner/representative for the National Off Highway Vehicle Conservation Council (NOHVCC), Parrinello is supposed to work with state officials to develop OHV trails, like the many other states he says collaborate with the partners to control issues like noise and soil erosion. This is because outside New Jersey, OHV use is common and accepted, said Parrinello. OHV users ride legally on many trails and the states reap the substantial economic benefits.
   Even in New Jersey, said Parrinello, OHV riders used to be able to ride on fire roads in the state parks and while not exactly legal, no one really bothered them.
   That is, until the administration changed in 2002, said Parrinello, and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the manager for the state's parks and forests, became an adversary.
                                     NOWHERE TO RIDE
   In 2002, the DEP banned off- road vehicle (ORV) use on all public and state land, except in specially-designed areas and began aggressive enforcement.
   "It may have been illegal, but no one said anything," said Parrinello. "Now, it's well known and they are enforcing that they don’t want anyone, anywhere?'
   Fines up to $1,000 were instituted, vehicles were impounded, riders were arrested and summons started to flow. Nearly 1,000 summonses were issued statewide in the first half of the year.
   The state said that they were responding to recent increases in illegal ORV use that caused pollution, soil erosion, and damage to plant and animal habitats. The DEP also announced that year that due to the increase in ORV popularity, they would find two sites for ORV use by 2005.
   But Parrinello, who advises on OHV/ORV site selection for NOHVCC and reached out to officials after hearing the news, is now skeptical as 2005 draws closer. He said he has heard no news about new sites and there is still no place in northern Jersey for his kids to ride their ORVs.
   Chris Howell, the president of X-treme Habitat Recreation, a nonprofit organization seeking to build individual action sports parks in northern New Jersey, is also skeptical.
"I want to have the commissioner keep his word and find facilities for OHV facilities;' said Howell. 'We were very close before the government changed to have something happen."
Interestingly, Howell's proposal to build an ORV park in West Milford failed due to local opposition, also in 2002.
   DEP spokesperson Erin Phalon maintained that the DEP will find sites by 2005. The self-defeating problem in the state's new laws, said Parrinello, is that by shutting the door on public OHV use, they shut it for older and responsible riders who don't ride on forest trails but like himself, prefer trail parks.
   "We're not off-road, but off-highway;" said Parrinello. "Going through the forest is not condoned by any of us." However, with no legal places to ride, ORV and OHV riders resort to illegal places.
                                            OHV ECONOMICS
   From the economic perspective, Parrinel1 says the state is missing out on lucrative revenue from OHV riders, which is a huge market.
   According to Tom Yager of the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America in California, the main trade association for ATVs, there has been an 80 percent increase over the past four years in New Jerseys ATV market. In 2003, dealers sold 10,000 ATVs. In a previous interview, an ATV rider said he paid between $200 to $400 to go riding to Pennsylvania,
where the trails were.
   In Northern New Jersey, there are no legal places to ride. In the south, a nonprofit organization operates an ORV park in Chatsworth that will soon close when their lease is up. But that's a two-hour ride for her and her kids, said Howell.
                                  FUNDING EXISTS FOR OHV USE
   Provisions do exist in state and federal programs that could help create new parks, although current state policies make them difficult to implement. Established in 1993, the Recreation Trails Program (RTP) is a federal program that supplies states with grant money for building and maintaining trails, to be divided evenly between motorized and non-motorized activity. However, only government agencies and nonprofit organizations can apply and only on public land or private land that has a public easement.
   Proposals on public lands though, means involving a local municipality, which is how Howell's proposal was rejected.
   "There has to be some kind of public involvement before we would approve (a grant), said Larry Michaels, who administers the state-level New Jersey Trails program under the DEP's Division of Parks and Forestry. Coincidentally, there is still money left over from 1999 and 2001's federal allotment that couldn't be used.
   "There was some extra funding that must be spent but we haven't had enough valid motorized applications to spend it on," said Michaels. For this year, only four out of 132 applications submitted were for motorized trails, and they may or may not be valid. "The idea is to use these funds to provide areas of (motorized) recreation” said Parrinello, but that’s not happening."
   In recent years, the annual amount has ranged from about $700,000 to over $900,000.
"If the political will is available, there's a tremendous amount of resources out there” said Yager.. "The vehicles are out there and it needs to be managed."
   According to Michaels, in 2003, $206,000, most of the amount allotted to motorized vehicle trails went to parks and facilities in southern New Jersey.
As far as how the RTP program would be involved with the DEPs two potential sites, Michaels said, "some funding could go to the sites if it becomes a reality:'

 

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